a normal day

Today is a normal day.

 It has been filled with putting hair in pony tails, sidewalk chalk, dollhouse banter, fruit snacks, laundry, and spilled milk. There was dancing in the living room and running barefoot in the rain. There were mermaid dolls in a tub of rice dyed blue. There was hiding under the table when Daddy came home for lunch. There was a nap for Nan and me while Becks sneaked shoes from my closet and lined them up in the living room. There were diaper changes and dinner around the table with a lot of "take another bite" and "turn around, please" reminders. There was dessert ice cream and picking up toys. There was get-you-game with high pitched squeals, baths administered, brushed teeth, and lights out.

But today was also anything but normal.

It was a last-- a standing on a precipice and a readying of feet to jump and a hoping the parachute that has always deployed will deploy again. It was feeling hiccups and jabs in my ribs one last time. It was pain when I walked and danger when I sneezed. It was looking at the empty sixth chair at supper with the knowledge it will be filled. It was tiptoeing into dark rooms and studying sweet, sleeping faces I know so well with tears in my eyes. It was one last day as a girl mom and glances into a waiting nursery.

It was a normal day.
It wasn't a normal day.

It was slow and uneventful, rainy and peaceful.
It was filled with forward thoughts, and nostalgic review glances.
It was wondering what tomorrow will bring ,and gratefulness for all that it held on its own today.
It was a heart full to bursting, and a knowing that hearts will grow even more.
It was feeling Zephaniah 3:17, and being quieted with His love and rejoiced over with singing.
It was hands holding tightly to the old, and palms open in faith and prayer for the new.

Today won't be the remembered day. And yet I want it to be remembered for everything it was, and everything it wasn't quite yet.

I'm learning to let go of expectations and to only hold on to the daily bread that I'm actually given. And so today I tried not to put pressure on us to be anything but normal.
And so we were-- a family of five in our little home on Sloan Street, living another normal day, but with feet ready to take a jump.

And tomorrow?
Tomorrow we will eat breakfast, and attempt to get Becks to eat something other than toast. We will try to get Blythe to hurry up and put on her shoes and get in the car. We will drop her off for another day of first grade, but we will have bags packed for the hospital in the seat behind us.

We will park and Brent will grab my hand and say a prayer, and we will walk in the hospital with the daily bread we will be given tomorrow.

And though it will cease to be a normal day, it will be a day in which all our new normal days begin.

The Sea

Tomorrow I send my firstborn daughter off to school. Kindergarten. And I am feeling it so deep in my gut. Here's the funny thing: I wasn't going to be this parent. I wasn't going to be the mom, holding her daughter's blanket in the middle of the day just to smell her sweet scent and remember the baby in her. I wasn't going to be the mom who wept when she dropped her child off in the tiled classroom decorated with owls and primary colors. I wasn't going to be the mom. Because... eye roll... come on, it is JUST KINDERGARTEN, right?

But I am not only THE MOM, I am here to let you know it is not "just kindergarten." It is everything and it is nothing. It is normal and it is so not normal. A big start and a huge end. It is learning new things and trusting in the investment of old learning. An embracing and a letting go.

The other night I went to peek at the girls before I crawled in bed myself-- a dangerous game of Russian Roulette [PLEASE DON'T WAKE UP WHEN THE FLOOR CREAKS!]. And there she was, my huge five year old, naked [of course] and cuddling her dolls and sleeping on her lunch bag. She looked so tall. Her hair I never thought would grow was so long. And yet when I zeroed in on her face I saw her-- my baby. Six pounds of fresh skin and body, a new soul I barely knew. Her blanket smelled like new, not like her.

One of my favorite poems is "On Turning Ten", by Billy Collins. In it he says he's "all the ages he's ever been." And as I stare at her, breathe her in, she is indeed the breathtaking newborn, the toddling one year old, the exploring two year old, the silly three year old, and the inquisitive four year old. And of course, the reality is she is also the beautiful, joyful, bursting to learn five year old before me, on the precipice of Kindergarten. She is all the ages. And I am sending all of them into that school building tomorrow.

I have never been awesome with change. I'm actually quite terrible with it. I will probably die with the same haircut I have now for this very reason. And yet, here we go: change.

I am 31. [I know! I am as shocked as you are!] And I have lived enough life to at least realize that change does not equal bad anymore than good equals staying the same. Actually, if I've learned anything it's that quite often Jesus calls us to change so that we can step out of the boat and experience far more good and abundance that we could experience inside of it. We won't know we can walk on water until we leave our comfort zones and try. 

But this change isn't solely about me [though, oh Lordy, will I grow too!]. It is about sending that little girl, in whose face I still see all the ages she's ever been, into a world that I know is quite busted and broken. I've had the immense pleasure and joy of getting to be home with her for five years, and hear this: I am my very own personal brand of bustedness. Don't we know. But I also knew she was mainly safe, what was being input, and that Jesus' name was on the tips of our tongues throughout our days. I got to be there when she failed. I got to be there when she experienced something spectacularly new and awesome. And now I have to send her out of the boat.


The other day she was singing one of her current favorites in the backseat: "You split the sea so I could walk right through it! My fears are drowned in perfect love! I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God."  And I fought back the tears that have come more easily to my eyes these days. And I remembered: Jesus is not just in our home. He is there. And Blythe is His child. And He will split the sea so she can walk right through it, even if I might prefer she never have to face the sea to begin with.

I know this next season of change will grow into our normal. But for now, please give me a minute because trust me, it is not just kindergarten. 

for my fourth

June 24, 2017

I'm sitting here sipping coffee with the windows open at the end of June. The air is cool, humidity free. A Colorado day that we are having here in northwest Missouri. This is a rare day, and so are you, a fourth child.

A couple of weeks ago I found out you were growing inside of me, a little person forming in my womb. I had a suspicion and the faded pink line confirmed and my eyes grew wide with many emotions: surprise, fear, excitement. Surprise, as we had finally said yes to a fourth in our hearts but hadn't with our feet just yet. Fear, as the number four seemed big and beyond me, and I knew others opinions may not be in our favor. And excitement, as I thought about welcoming another life into our midst.

After we had Becks, I wasn't sure I would have more. Two girls seemed so complete to me. And then we prayed, and along came Nan. And we had always said two or four, but once we had three we realized just how big that number was. Odd or even, a family of five had become our jam. Nan's pregnancy was really hard on my body. Your dad had contracted zi.ka in the middle of the pregnancy which meant some unknowns and extra ultrasounds, which fortunately resulted in nothing unusual. My pelvis had separated towards the end and it took a long time to heal and be able to walk, stand, and step normally.  Plus the transition to three kids, which was just a lot in so many big ways. I couldn't really think about a fourth for awhile. It's not even that I didn't want to think about a fourth; I didn't have the capacity to even go there. 

But slowly, like a spring garden bursting forth in the heat of the summer sun, my heart began to open to the possibility bit by bit. I had learned with Nan that God could stretch me and grow me far beyond myself. I had learned that at the end of myself was this great chasm that I didn't have to leap over on my own, but that God would carry me through in beautiful, sometimes tear-filled, but always grace-filled ways. It was a space I would have never found with only two children; a space so bursting forth with goodness and rawness and realness. It was a space where I had to embrace my inability with God's ability every single day. And as I thought about a fourth child, as I thought about you, I knew that God would meet me at that chasm again.


But just because I knew that, it didn't make me want to again. Not yet. I thought of the pain I would endure again. The possibility of my pelvis literally ripping at the seams again. I thought of less time with each of my children. I thought of more days in the infant phase. I thought of another year I would have to spend nursing. I thought of longer years until I could return to teaching. I thought of less people being willing to help out [four kids is pushing the limits of what people want to step into]. I thought of my body going through the trauma of growing another human, and delivering him/her into the world. I thought of limits on what we could do as a family.

 So I started to pray. And once I prayed I heard God clearly say, "You're not making this decision. I gave you Brent. Let him lead you." Woah. Little one, you will learn early that it is hard, hard work for me to sit back and be led sometimes.  I thought of that little word that packs a punch: submit. And while I was praying about the possibility of you and praying through my fears and excuses, God called to mind a little radio interview I had heard this past year.  I only caught a portion of it before your sisters requested "their songs",  but I remember clearly it was a husband and wife, and she said something like this: In life there are very few times I'm going to have to totally submit to a decision my husband makes, because usually we are on the same page. And making a decision with him, that I fully support, isn't submission, even though I wish it were. And in our 40 years of marriage, there have been very few times that we haven't been able to reach a decision together; where submission to trust his decision is required of me. But submission is only submission when it isn't a decision I would have necessarily arrived at on my own. That is paraphrased, but that little snippet really spoke to me, and God brought it back to my mind like a sledgehammer when I really started praying about the possibility of you.

It was a beautiful spring evening and we were out for a walk. We had parked the strollers and were letting your sisters crawl around on some steps and rocks, and I said to your dad, "I'm going to trust you to lead me in this. I trust you to seek God and make this decision for our family." And your dad took that seriously. He prayed and read scripture and prayed some more. And when he said he knew I was supposed to get pregnant, and if I couldn't get pregnant then that meant we were to adopt a fourth, I trusted him, even though my knees were knocking at every turn.

We went on a little family vacation with your dad's side of the family in late May, and I didn't know it yet but I was pregnant with you. On our drive I listened to a new song by Sara Groves called "Strangely Ready." She sings:

I'm strangely ready for what comes next
I'm strangely ready
It's hard to describe cause it makes no sense.
I'm strangely ready for what comes next.

Count it faith, I got up.
Nothing left for me yet but a longing with trust.
Was it faith? I don't know.
You just lifted and led me and I had to go.
Now I'm strangely ready.

A vision in the sky
A fire in the night
You said you'll do your part if I'll do mine
Now I'm strangely ready

 As I listened to those words I asked God that, if He were to give us another child, that I would be strangely ready. And while there is so much unknown out here on the edge, He just lifted and led me and I had to go.

I have to think of those first, quiet dream-like hospital days. Adrenaline still pumping through me, the magic dust yet to settle. A nursery staff and nurses bringing me iced water around the clock. You as a brand new bundle of fresh, soft skin. I think of getting to do that again-- hard, hard labor-work followed by that moment that is ethereal when it is as if God Himself has handed you to me.

But the reality of heading home after that? The transition back to our house and day-to-day living?  There have been times already where I nearly crumble under the weight of what that may bring. I know a lot of people, after three kids, say, "Oh, what's one more?!" But my sister said, "Well, it's one more." It will be a lot more. More diapers, more sleep lost, more pediatrician appointments, more fears, more food to cook, more schedules to manage, more carseats in the van, more school programs,  more disciplining, more, more, more. But it will also be more hugs, more laughter, more pudgy toddler hands, more first big moments, more "push me higher, mommy!", more innocent prayers around the kitchen table, more siblings to care for one another in old age, more smore sticks around a campfire, more Johnson & Johnson cheek kissing after bath time, more books read in my lap, more praying that you will know Jesus early and deeply. More, more, more.

 God said He will do His part if I do mine. And I am strangely ready for what comes next. I am strangely ready for you, my fourth child.

Love,
Your mom

Oil in my lamp

 Channeling my best circus act, I twist and stretch my right arm over the car seat while trying to keep one on the steering wheel. One eye on the road, one eye trying to find the bloody pacifier. I feel the pink rubber, then blindly search for the screaming mouth, all while trying to avoid crossing the center line and having the semi-truck driver following my mini-van-of-fun call the police on the clearly intoxicated driver. While the pacifier contortion act is finishing up,  a blue pen is stolen from the one who clearly can't live without the blue pen because it is desperately needed to finish coloring the beautiful picture inside the library book. At least her gum isn't stuck to one of the pages again. I switch from circus performance to mediator, and apparently the switch is an ineffective one as the screaming escalates and I am waiting for the windshield to break at the new decibel. I give up trying to mediate, and reach for the glove box. McDonald's napkins tumble out as I grasp another pen. I toss it to the very back of the van, hoping some little hand will grasp it.

As the volume decreases, I hear the song. It's a kid's CD. Of course, it's a kid's CD.  It's just more noise at first, and then without thinking I find myself singing along to the familiar words:

Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burning, burning burning. Give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burning, burning, burning. Keep it burning till the break of day. 

 We eventually made it home that day. And I managed to get lunch fed to all three, and when I didn't know if I would make it to naptime or through the next tantrum I felt a prayer rising to my lips: Give me oil in my lamp, Lord. 

And isn't that the prayer of adulthood?  

When our job is on the line,
when our kids are sick in the hospital,
when our marriage seems on sandy ground,
when the baby won't sleep,
when our friends need us to walk with them through hard stuff,
when the hard stuff shows up in our own life,
when you have three kids, ages 4 and under, that you're responsible for,
when someone challenges your faith,
when a parent dies,
when you're not sure where the money will come from, 
when you're just so tired,

Lord, keep it burning till the break of day. 

It makes me think of the story of Elijah and the widow in 1 Kings 17.

⁷ Some time later the brook dried up. It hadn’t rained in the land for quite a while. ⁸ A message came to Elijah from the Lord. He said, ⁹ “Go right away to Zarephath in the region of Sidon. Stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” ¹⁰ So Elijah went to Zarephath. He came to the town gate. A widow was there gathering sticks. He called out to her. He asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar? I need a drink.” ¹¹ She went to get the water. Then he called out to her, “Please bring me a piece of bread too.”
¹² “I don’t have any bread,” she replied. “And that’s just as sure as the Lord your God is alive. All I have is a small amount of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I’m gathering a few sticks to take home. I’ll make one last meal for myself and my son. We’ll eat it. After that, we’ll die.”
¹³ Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home. Do what you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me. Make it out of what you have. Bring it to me. Then make some for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ The Lord is the God of Israel. He says, ‘The jar of flour will not be used up. The jug will always have oil in it. You will have flour and oil until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’ ”
¹⁵ She went away and did what Elijah had told her to do. So Elijah had food every day. There was also food for the woman and her family. ¹⁶ The jar of flour wasn’t used up. The jug always had oil in it. That’s what the Lord had said would happen. He had spoken that message through Elijah.

  Did you catch that? "I'll make one last meal...after that, we'll die." That is heavy. This woman was done. She had accepted she had nothing left and not only was her own life going to be over, but every mother's worst nightmare was coming true for her as well-- she couldn't even provide food for her child and he would die too. And then here comes someone asking her for some bread! She knew she didn't have enough to survive another day, and yet she trusted this prophet and his God.

And the flour wasn't used up. The jug always had oil in it. 

To me this story doesn't mean that we won't lose the job or the sickness won't come. To me this story is a reminder of daily trust in a faithful God in spite of our circumstances.

This widow couldn't open the door to her pantry and see all the oil that the Lord had promised her. She didn't have an Amazon Prime receipt of what was going to be delivered.  She just had to trust it would be there, and that it would be enough to sustain for one more day.

And then eventually the rain came.

Would I have that kind of faith? I can't even seem to make it to bedtime some days and simply trust that God will give me enough energy for the next day.

But in the midst of these very full, often chaotic days, I hear my God saying, "The flour won't be used up. The jug will always have oil in it."

Just last week I told someone that I don't feel like what I'm doing right now is something I could sustain very long; if I didn't know having three small children at home were for just a season and I thought it was for indefinitely I don't know what I could do it. But this bible story reminds me: I can't. God will. 

And so if you see a van careening down the highway, things flying around inside, and children screaming, listen a little closer and you'll probably also hear my new song these days: Give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burning, burning, burning. Keep it burning till the break of day. 

And if your flour and oil seem to be running out these days too, feel free to join me at the chorus.
 

where there are no outlets

A child said  What is the grass? 

fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not 

know what it is any more than he. 

- Walt Whitman

Two years ago I wrote a post about why it is important for me to get my kids outside. Last week Blythe and Becks got in the creek for the second or third time this summer. Nan even got her toes wet in the muddy water. And our souls were refreshed. It made me think of the post I had written back then, and even though it's gotten harder as I've added children, I still think it's so important to get them outside. To get dirty. To have hair whipped by the wind. To pick up bugs. To name earthworms. To dig holes. To watch birds and chase squirrels. 

I've edited a few pieces of this post, but it is mainly the same from two years ago to accompany the new photos from our creek adventure. Enjoy! Then get outside! 

This post all started when I was watching a little show with Blythe. Really, I suppose it started five or six years ago when my dad let me borrow a book. But actually it started when, in college, I began getting in classrooms and observing students. But really, if I look at the broad picture, it started in my childhood backyard.

Let me paint a picture:
When I was growing up, my backyard, my neighborhood, the expanses of trees and creeks beyond-- they were really just an extension of our home. My sister and I rarely watched television as children. We thought we were SO deprived because we didn't have a gaming system  Nintendo or Sega [let's be honest, there weren't any others]. We could identify birds and tell you the names of trees by the shape of their leaves. We had our fair share of poison ivy and fights with stinging nettle. We went fishing and hunting and picked up acorns and walnuts for extra cash. By the end of a summer's day, I was covered in dirt that had mingled with my sweat.

Eventually I became a high schooler. Other obligations, like sports and homework, took more time from me but I still, on occasion, would spray on bug repellent and march all over our property, noticing raccoon tracks and matted grass where a deer had bedded the previous night.

When I went to college, I thought I might waste away in the library basement writing papers, but sometimes would take an opportunity to sneak out in the late hours of an autumn night for a bonfire with new friends, or unload a group of unsuspecting "city kids" into the woods to take them on their first "snipe hunting" adventure. When I became a Resident Assistant, the Resident Life directors all saw the value that the outdoors provided in way of building community and resolve among us trainees, and I was right at home in the tents and canoes, surrounded by campfires and crickets.

Eventually my degree was coming to a close and I ended up in a lot of classrooms, and eventually was facing a classroom full of high school seniors just a few years younger than me. And that is when I began to see it: the ever-widening gap between kids/teens and nature. I didn't get a cell phone until I went to college and a lot of college students didn't have a personal computer at their disposal. Facebook didn't exist. Nobody was talking about the latest apps. If someone had Tivo it was rare. I still remember putting a sticky note on the door to the shared TV room in my dorm to reserve Thursday nights at 8 o'clock so a group of us could watch Alias. I doubt this happens anymore, as everyone lays in their own bed and watches TV shows on Netflix [which also was not around when I was in college].

So what am I trying to say?

Well, when I moved to Louisville right after college and began teaching even younger kids, the gap seemed even bigger, and the electronics even more abundant. And then my dad gave me a book to read: Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. I didn't even need to open it. The title made perfect sense to me, and I could clearly see that I was one of the lucky ones; I could see that my generation just barely snuck through. I felt like we really were the last children in the woods.

The book is really just what it sounds like: heavily researched and with astonishing evidence, Louv shows the reader how out of touch with the natural world "kids today" are. But he goes further and he links the lack of exposure to nature, coupled with the heavily "wired" generation, with so many trends we see in our kids today: rises in obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder, and depression. [Yes, I know many other things can cause any of these as well, but hang with me.]

I opened the book and saw the quote by a fourth grader Louv included as a preface to his book: I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are. I dug in. Though I didn't read it all, and skimmed a lot because it was not the light "summer reading" I was necessarily looking forward to, I was intrigued by so many facts Louv exposed that I knew, just from my own experiences and observations, had to be true:
-By the 1990s the radius around the home where children were allowed to roam on their own had shrunk to a ninth of what it had been in 1970. 
-Today, average 8 year olds can identify cartoon characters better than they can native species, such as beetles and oak trees in their own communities. 
- The number of prescriptions for antidepressants to children has doubled in the last five years [book was published in 2005], and recent studies show too much computer time is not good for the developing mind. 

Louv is bold in his accusations of what "nature deficit" can cause, but he claims that it can damage children and eventually shape adults, families, and communities. He gives solutions though, and shows how being in touch with nature is essential for a healthy childhood development on many levels. He even talks about how this shift in lifestyle for children dramatically improves test scores, grade point averages, and not to mention kids critical thinking skills. And obviously creativity. We are so distracted now. We may appreciate nature, but it is while we are on the phone or we have headphones in. We drive over creeks in our air conditioned car with our music blaring and we don't even look down to see how high the water is after the recent rain or drought. Blythe does now. She always looks and comments about the water level-- if it is too high to play in or just perfect.

Besides the competition technology provides though, other shifts have occurred: we fear strangers and traffic and viruses and rusty nails and …well, what hasn't media told us to fear in what is beyond our front door? Not to mention there is just less nature now. However, the author really gives some great ideas, and motivation, for parents who want to make sure their kids are not the "last child[ren] in the woods." [And here is my fair warning: some of it got a little "tree-huggy" for me, but overall it was good.]

I thought of this book occasionally after reading it so many summers ago-- when students would write, not about what they were discovering in the trees or dirt, but rather about what new video games they were playing. But what really made me think of this book again? I became a parent.

Blythe is two. She already asks for my phone, on which I have held out in downloading games for her, and I know she watches entirely too much TV. This recently has surfaced more and more. I always tried to limit it-- but then I was hugely pregnant. And then I had kidney stones. And then I had a newborn. And it seemed that her time in front of the TV just kept increasing. And part of me still defends that: trust me, it is okay sometimes to just survive and if it means plunking your toddler in front of the tube for a little bit so you can BREATHE! or shower, or eat, or feed an infant, or clip your fingernails, or brush your teeth… then by all means, DO IT! Your sanity will thank you.

But you know what I was discovering? The MORE TV Blythe was watching, the less she was entertained by it. And the MORE TV Blythe watched, the less she was napping and sleeping. And the MORE TV I let Blythe watch to keep her occupied? The LESS she was occupied. Her imaginative play began to decrease: she wanted to be ENTERTAINED. And this was after just a couple weeks of increased TV time. I find this even truer now that I've tested it with more children! And my kids LOVE tv. Sometimes I have to BEG them to get outside. It's easier to let them watch TV. But the more I turn it off, the better Blythe and Becks will play together. The more ideas they have, the more they are able to entertain themselves, and the thing that amazes me the most: they fight and bicker less and throw fewer tantrums! I know! It's crazy but true!

And then it occurred to me, the irony of all ironies, that so many of the little shows she would watch had catch phrases or songs about getting OUTSIDE! One of her favorites is Bubble Guppies. We don't have cable, so my parents have a few DVR-ed for her at their house. The one song that is on every episode: "Everybody up! Let's go, let's go! Everybody outside, everybody!" And yet there we were, sitting inside while the daylight burned on all around us.

And as we are beginning to figure out our days with Becks a little more, and my energy is coming back, and the days are getting warmer and longer, I am trying harder and harder to show Blythe [and Becks too, though she doesn't seem to pay attention much, right now ;)], the beauty of being outside-- the beauty of exploring and dirt and trees and wind on your face and humidity licking at your neck. I'm trying to get her unplugged and outside so that she looks back on the adventures of her childhood like I look back on mine. And the more of an effort I've put into this, the more I've seen her creativity and imagination, and even her attention span, growing. It's true

And even though, as ridiculous as it sounds, some days it is hard to take the ten steps to get out the door, it is always so worth it. For all of us.


And the other day when my dad cut a path down to the creek and asked if he could take Blythe? I was so excited for her. I couldn't wait for her to get her toes wet and get sand stuck on her ankles. I wanted her to walk with the minnows in the clear flowing water and swat a few mosquitos. I wanted her to be pinked by the sun, and get rosy cheeked from the exertion of it all. I wanted her to discover this great big, beautiful thing that is at our fingertips everyday.

my dad has learned over the course of various trips and now brings snacks and toilet paper. women!

sometimes when it is chilly or the bugs are bad he builds a fire

Once she and her papa got down to the creek, Becks and I observed from a bridge above. I shouted a hello at her, barely able to break her attention from the sandy bottom. She squinted up at me, a pink ball cap sitting askew on her sweaty head, and said, "Come, Mama. Come down to my creek." Her creek.

Yes, Blythe. Nature is yours. Embrace it.

when it was time to go this time she said, "I think I'll just stay down here until it gets dark..."